LOL!

Not only do I live in a funky and creative city, my neighborhood seems to be the center of all this funkiness and creativity.  I love it.   This week, someone has been plaster the neighborhood with brightly colored signs saying "LOL".   I'm really hoping these signs are being put up as a reminder to everyone to Laugh Out Loud.   If it is not, please don't tell me.   When I walk or drive by these signs, I really do laugh out loud.  It feels good.  I'm reminded just how much I love to laugh and the sound of laughter. Laughter lights up life.  It is a song or another way of singing.  My Grandmas encouraged me to have a strong loud laugh.   I will encourage you to develop the same, and use your laugh everyday.  Laughter is like opening up a window and letting fresh air flow in.
So laugh and laugh often.  It really is the best medicine.
LOL.  or  LMAFO we all need.   When was the last time you laughed out loud?  Really.

Thank you to the person or persons who is decorating my city with these signs.  Again, if the LOL signs aren't a reminder to laugh out loud.  I don't want to know. 

Until next week...create to feel great!

22 projects complete 30 to go!

This week's project is a dazzling frame- for a RuPaul's Drag Race craft swap. Yes, you read that one right! 

Transforming Fear- Yes You Can!

Spring is a time of transformation!  In Portland, Oregon, we had an unusally snow on the first day of Spring.  As much as I love and have been wanting Spring, the snow was a nice little surprise and made me want Spring even more!  Well, as I write, this it is sunny, today was warm and tomorrow looks like another sunny one as well.  Winter.  Hibernation.  Cold.  Bare trees.  For some it can be a time when they sit and plant seeds of fear.  Winter can be a dark time.  Fear really doesn't need the Winter season, it can appear at anytime.   So, would you like to start this fresh green season of Spring with a "rebirth"  Free and transformed from Fear?  You can.  You have the power all within you.  Here's some simple suggestions to get you going.


1. Fear Is a Feeling, Not a Fact

    You can feel fear.  Yet the trick here is to check in with you.  Are you in real physcial danger or is this your mind spinning.  What is the reality here?  Tell the truth.   Take a deep breath, let it go.   Repeat until the fear feeling has past. No judgement how many cycles you have to do here.  Just breath and release until it passes.
2. Your Fear Mind Is a Bully
     If someone was threatening your family member or friends, would you let them get away with being a bully?  Well.  Why do you allow your Fear Mind to beat you up, waste your time, drain your life energy and take your lunch money?  You are stronger than you know.  Stand up to the Fear Mind.  Send it packing.
3. Be Here Now
    All we have is now.   Spending the day that is given to us as a blessing is really telling the universe thanks but no thanks...I'm going to worry about the future and worry about stuff that might never happen and I'm going to waste this moment and all and any future moments worrying.  I'll worry so much, I'll get sick.  Nothing will get done.  So, much for a wonderful future, because you didn't tend to the moment.  Each moment adds up to the future.   BE HERE- NOW!   More breathing might be called for here.
4. Meditation
    Be still.  More breathing.  Sit quiet for at least a minute.  Build on that.  Until you can be still for ten minutes or more a day.   Try being still in middle of chaos.  A lot more breathing here.
5.Express Gratitude.
   Be grateful.   Express it and often.  This isn't a big deal.  A wonderful smile or an acknowledgement.  Finding something to be grateful for no matter how small and even on the worse of you days, will transform you in an instant.  What are you grateful for in this moment?
6. Play! Create!  Have fun!  Laugh!
    Again, not a big deal.  Try this...step away from you computer and do a silly dance.  30 second all out silly dance...just to get the ball rolling.  Oh, and breathe.
The more you create, breathe (laughing is a great form of breathing),be in the moment, be still, be grateful
with all that going on...fear won't be able to find you!

Until next week...create to feel great!

21 projects complete! 31 to go!

In honor of Spring!  Felt roses.  From this super great website...www.howjoyful.com
Wonderful ideas and she does tutorials (unlike yours truly).
Happy Spring!!!

Where To Put Faith

"Watch where you put your faith.  Do you have more faith in the power of your disasters or in the power of God to transform them?"  Marianne Williamson

With the discovery of some mold, stemming from a botched plumbing job, in my house and all the hassle and expense this involves, the above quoted came in very handy this week.  I referred to constantly, it tested me, it questioned me, challenged me and brought me peace of mind. My past pattern has been to get so angry, upset and lash out.  Screaming, "Why??????" At the top of my lungs to the point of making myself ill and alienating everyone within a 600 mile radius of me. I have this quote on my fridge and I looked at over and over again as service repairmen tromped through my house "little lady-ing" me and doing their very best to sell me on their company and scare me at the same time.  The quote brought me calm in the sea of all this.  It cleared my mind and allowed me not to panic and not to eat the entire kitchen on a wild scared nervous binge.  The handle the situation. Listen to my intuition as to how best to deal with it.  This will be resolved.   My little household will be healthier for it all.


The question of where to put faith is one of those big questions only we can answer within ourselves.  I like that this quote gives me choice. I think the universe has our back and really does take care of us.  We can be transformed either way.   I'm discovering there is unlimited possibilities beyond what my mind can imagine for any given situation.  For me, I learning to breathe and go with the flow of positive opportunities.

So, where do you put your faith?

Until next week...create to feel great!

20 projects complete! 32 to go! 

For Spring and St. Patrick's Day a quilted potholder (I don't quilt, but this was fun)

Sunny!

For some reason, I've been getting O magazine.  I'm not the biggest fan of Oprah, and her magazine doesn't do all that much for me. As I read the offerings I always feel like I'm being sold on something or that if I'm not using the advice my life will hit the skids and wind up in a trailer down by the river.  If I'm going to read a magazine, I like my information and crafts on a deeper level. I know people who love them some Oprah and her magazine.  I just don't find it with Ms O.
When this month's issue appeared in my mailbox I sat down and thumbed through it.  There was a very cool article about eating and her relationship with food from one of my favorite people, Anne Lamont.   She has a way of getting into my brain and expressing what I'm feeling and thinking in such an entertaining fun way.   There was an article by Martha Beck she was talking about having an optimistic outlook on life.  How sometimes adopting this mindset is uncomfortable and yet really benefits us in the long run.  I hear you, girl!.
I've said this myself many many times.  I know this for a fact.  See I don't come from an optimistic background. Being positive, sunny and bright, was not in my up bringing or wiring.  I come from a long long line of crazy crazy gloomy Gus-s and Gertrud-s.  The one truth I was raised with was that if something can go wrong it will and the worst always happens.  Yuck.  That sort of fear and negativity makes one not only a bit crazy, and ill but angry and defensive.   That was me for years.  Fighting against all this flood of negativity because I knew and had proven to myself that a positive frame for mind is the way to go, yet wanting to hang on to all the negativity energy and anger, because I loved that "edge" I felt it gave me.  It was how I learned to cope.
Fast forward to the letting all that negativity go. (Sidebar, I work and focus on that everyday.  Some days are better than others.)  Now, I have my positive attitude, I feel happier more creative and really who I am, and yet I still get comments from people who haven't seen me for a while.  I sometimes get asked what do I have to be so happy and content about?  I answer- EVERYTHING!
Martha Beck's article struck a note with me.   I am discovering the benefits of a positive sunny life. Yes it is not without it's challenges to maintain, and yet I feel like I've got the groove and I like it.  Most importantly, I've been able to unearth who I really am.  A sunny positive funny smart creative woman.  It is never never too late to start that project.

Do you consider yourself a sunny person? How do you do it? And if not when would you like to start?

Until next week...create to feel great!
19 projects complete 33 to go.

This week is project is a an extravangza elegangza for a good friend's 40 Birthday.

Purple rhinestone necklace.   She loved it when it arrived in the mail.  I think it shines and sparkles like my friend.

A Futuristic Vision

How come most of the visions for the future are filled with negative images.  War, famine, people not in control of their lives, violence.  Folks seem to love these visions and can not get enough of them.  Yes it's a fantasy version of the future. The creators of these visions are often attempting to warn us or make us think while entertaining us. Really folks, if that's your fantasy or a fantasy you enjoy I have news for you.  Whatever and where ever you place your focus is going to be drawn into your life. Not for me.
What is wrong with a future world where people have enough to eat  Wonderful places to live. That we spend our days creating art ,beauty and in scientific discovery, instead of wreaking havoc, a swril of negativity and how we can "get the other guy".  How about a world where pain comes from holding your yoga posture too long or digging in your garden all day in the sun?  In my future world, folks know that love really is all we need and it is in realized in plenty supply. The only worry is that there is not enough time or energy in day,  for all the crafting, painting, writing, reading, laughing and time with people.  Power over another person is concept people don't accept or better yet, something that isn't engaged in.  Where the only thing that is left on the curb is garbage, not pets or kids.  Governments are really for the all people by all the people. Fear comes in the form of what would challenge us to evolve as a better person. Thinking and being in the moment is an establish way to live life. Bottom line, we take care of ourselves, each other and the earth.
I've been kidded that a world like that would be boring and it is unreal to even think it.
Okay that's your opinion.  I believe it is possible.  It's all about focus.
What we focus on we will draw that focus to us. Our minds are very powerful creative tools.
I'm going to focus how to create a better world. How the future is a positive one.  I hope you join me.

Until next week...create to feel great.

18 projects complete...34 to go.

I'm thinking this blog post came about from me watching way too much TV lately while working on these Comfort Dolls for the Comfort Doll project.   It is a crafting out reach for women in shelters.  To bring them comfort and help them realize the beauty they have to share in the world.

The girls are ready to go!

I was attracted to making these sort of odd looking, yet very cute dolls. I really wanted to be a a part of this project.   More info can be found at http://www.comfortdollproject.blogspot.com/